


Hurree Babu and Noddy Sing the Blues

by Dhobi ki Kutti (dhobikikutti)



Category: The Daily Show RPF
Genre: British Character, Chromatic Character, Community: thirdmonday, Desi Character, Gen, Muslim Character, hyphenate character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-22
Updated: 2010-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 11:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhobikikutti/pseuds/Dhobi%20ki%20Kutti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night in the life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hurree Babu and Noddy Sing the Blues

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tish (count_nickula)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tish+%28count_nickula%29).



> Written for Tish (count_nickula) for the Third Monday 2010 ficathon for the prompt "Aasif Mandvi and John Oliver get drunk together".  
> Thanks to applegnat for the beta.

_5.15pm_

"Ok, Jon, you'd better be bringing your A game to the table and giving me the Colbert treatment tonight."

Aasif fixes an imperious eye on Jon, sitting at the other end of the writers' room table. "I need to impress someone in the audience tonight and I expect you to prove to them how uproariously funny I am."

Jon gives his patented "Whaa... me?!" shrug and gestures helplessly towards the writers. "I'm just the dancing monkey, remember?"

The production manager interrupts to point out that the revised script is 45 minutes overdue, and the obvious jokes at Aasif's lack of making-Jon-break talent are set aside for line edits.

_6.23pm_

As they are standing in the wings waiting for their scenes, John Oliver nudges Aasif and asks, "Who is she, then? Your bird in the audience?"

Aasif responds, deadpan, "Please keep your limey heteronormative assumptions out of my promiscuous east coast liberal life. The person I am trying to impress self-identifies as a man."

"That desperate, eh?" John winks, but is a little taken aback with Aasif sighs with a hint of real resignation. "Yes, yes I am John, thank you for inquiring. After all, tonight had to be the night I have to share with the great, crowd-pleasing fan favourite John Oliver, didn't it?"

Then silence is called on-set for the taping, and Aasif sets himself up in front of the green screen for a bit about his right as a brown Muslim American to get gay married in a burqa. There are one or two jokes in there that the audience doesn't laugh much at which Aasif had put in, after a bemused but understanding Jon had let him.

The audience cheers politely when the skit is done, but the level of noise is nowhere close to the whistles and hoots that greet John's appearance as Senior Imperialist Correspondent. It's not a particularly inspired piece of writing, since neither John nor Jon had the time during rehearsal to work in the personal physical riffing off of each other that they tend to bring to a scene they are co-writing and acting in. The audience seems to love it though, cheering John on when he talks about how Imperialists need to be more affable and cheery like him, instead of Cheney-esque.

"I mean, come on, Jon, if you're going to lose your national sovereignty and political independence and economic stability, would you rather do it to a frighteningly articulate and ridiculously buff motherfucker like Obama, or to a chap like me?" John patters, and hams up an expression of smug modesty when Jon has to ad-lib over the audience cheers by saying, "Apparently they like your version of tea parties better."

When the cut to the ad break, John stands up and acknowledges the audience with a pompous bow and then a flirty hand-kiss. As he smiles at the audience, he sees Aasif, standing on the side, out of the way of the stage manager who is talking to the waiting guest—a conservative political analyst whose book Jon found "surprisingly readable". Aasif has a polite smile on his face, and John suddenly remembers hearing Aasif joking about the 'inscrutable Oriental face' he had so much practise donning during his pre-Sakina's Restaurant days.

_7.47pm_

When the show ends, John saunters over to the guests Aasif is talking to—a South Asian man in a kurta and jeans, and two South Asian women, one with a strong Caribbean accent. John thinks about making a joke about the limelight being stolen from the limey, but opts instead, for a simple, perky, "Hello!"

Aasif introduces the man as a filmmaker from Bangalore, and the Pakistani-American woman as his host and an old theatre friend of Aasif's. They are all arguing about where to go for drinks, and it takes a while for John to establish that 'Trini' is actually a blogger and PR person named Maggie. John sticks around intimate enough to necessitate a "You want to come along?" from Aasif, to which he replies with a cheerful, "Sure, mate!"

_10.05pm_

Two hours later, they are ensconced in an increasingly crowded booth at a bar on 10th Ave and 50th St. Noorya and Trini/Mags both did the text-networking thing, and now there are ten or twelve people who hold down the connected tables while additional bar-hoppers drop in to meet the filmmaker before going out. A fantastically beautiful woman in a stern pair of spectacles tells Aasif that she's playing designated driver for the Jersey lot, and can drop him off if he's done before 3am.

It is the night their hiatus starts, and soon Aasif and John are nursing their third set of drinks. Not seating together, though, because Aasif has been flitting around catching up with what are clearly old friends and long-standing schmoozing colleagues, while John has been treated to individual small talk sessions by a polite group of insiders who know the last thing he wants is to be asked questions about how smart Jon Stewart actually is in real life.

_11.20pm_

The gorgeous-in-glasses girl is called Noyonicka—she spells it out for the purposes of a discussion that envelops Hinglish, Kal Penn, and Leftist Bong Conspiracy Theories. She's sober enough to use the term 'post-colonial native informer' in reference to Aasif's work on the Daily Show, and Aasif is alcohol-mellowed enough to make some cracks about hipster racism that he probably would not bring up during a writers meeting.

John Oliver is not sozzled, but then the third girl in the party of five seated across the room brushes nonchalantly past him on her ostensible way to the restroom and does the identical giggle-blush-OMG aren't you that cute British guy from that TV show routine her two friends have done before her.

"No, he is", John attempts, making a ta-da gesture at Aasif, but the girl's polite exclamations of pleasure are not enough to save her from Noyonicka's tart, "Didn't you stop by here twice just five minutes ago? Oh, those were your friends? Sorry, my bad, it's so hard to tell all you blondes apart.

The girl is offended, and says with great dignity and earnestness how much she admires Mr. Mandvi's work on the Daily Show, and gives John a very starry-eyed and sympathetic smile before she retreats. The filmmaker breaks off his conversation about Foucault and Kundan Shah to stare at them all with the abstract interest of watching a riot on TV, and a buff, clearly aspiring actor makes a comment about "all this P.C-Shee-Si nonsense" and it is all very awkward.

_12.17am_

John realises he has a headache in the middle of a very garrulous and involved conversation with Aasif about how fucking Americans always fucking put ice in fucking everything, and Trini/Mags/Maggie is showing a bunch of people YouTube videos of steel drums on her iPhone.

Noyonicka is giggling with a girlfriend who is brainstorming a web comic called Mr Popadum and the Coconuts on a paper napkin.

Noorya, who has revealed herself to be the ridiculously rich wife of a stock broker on the boards of half the po-mo dance companies in Manhattan, smiles convivially at John and says, "I am glad you could come and join us all tonight."

"I'm your token British friend, aren't I?" John smiles muzzily back.

"Oy! I'm the resident Paki around here," Aasif interjects with the instinct that comes from having practised this routine before.

"No! Really?" John can't set aside his lassitude to muster the proper shock and surprise for this bit. "But you speak such good American!"

"Fuck that chicken-biryani!" adds a sardonic girl in dreads who has spent most of the evening typing on her Blackberry, and about one third of the table proves to be Jon Stewart fans enough to start giggling.

_1.43am_

A young man the filmmaker has clearly been flirting with all night is singing a Faiz song that Noorya is softly whispering a translation for into the ear of a dark, Latino-looking man beside her. Noyonicka has closed her eyes and curled her arms around her knees in the booth, fingers tapping against the CD of her demo album that she pulled out after Trin/Mag suggested the director consider her music for his background score.

Aasif has his arm around a woman shaking with inebriated fury about some casting outrage at the college theatre department she works for. "Of course, it's fucking Shakespeare," she rants, "Screw Vishal Bhardwaj and Kurosawa, because Cecy Berry and RP are..."

The woman pauses mid-sentence to grab a napkin and dab at her mouth. Aasif's eyes are sleepy and sad. "Fucking British," he offers quietly.

"I'm sorry," John Oliver says automatically, out of habit.

"You're ok," Aasif smiles. "As long as you didn't do Shakespeare. Did you?" He squints mock-quizzical.

"I'm a bloody stand-up comic!" John protests. "I never got to have tea with the Queen like those RADA blighters either!"

Aasif nods.

Noyonicka steps out of her trance long enough to murmur, "Did you ever get to do any Shakespeare, Aasif?"

He shrugs. "They let me do Othello in college once."

"But you're a real actor," the napkin-clenching woman points out, bitterly, while looking at John.

Aasif shrugs again.

_2.29am_

Aasif and Noyonicka stand at the curb waiting for John to catch a cab. Two of them drive past, but then as John walks a little way away from the pair towards the intersection, a third one pulls up.

"Nice meeting you. Drink some water." Noyonicka says, as she turns to walk to the side street where her own car is parked.

"I think you'd make a good Bottom," Aasif calls out, and John flips him the bird in farewell.

The cabbie has a tacky plastic Ganesh on the headboard.

_3.02am_

"thx had good time sorry fr u no", John texts to Aasif before he gets into bed.

_12.14pm_

"It's cool. Noyonicka texted me to tell you she's sorry for anything she might have said to you while she was drunk last night. She's had a crush on Jon Stewart since I got the gig, and she's vicious about the show as a result. We should do this again sometime. Minus the hangover." – Aasif emails back.

_2.35pm_

John types and deletes three and a half sentences before finally emailing, "I consider it an honour to be your token British friend who can be justly and drunkenly harangued for the crimes of my erstwhile Empire. Did you impress the director?"

_3.20pm_

Aasif takes a break from the playwright grant he is looking over for a friend to reply, "Oh, that's right, you weren't paying attention when we got into that argument about whether second-gen ABCDs were misrepresenting and appropriating the Indian experience. Noorya was mentioning that he's probably still hoping Aamir Khan gets back to him, honestly."

_4.11pm_

John is about to head out the door to catch a show he had promised a fellow Cambridge Footlights alum he would watch, but he spends ten minutes looking up Aamir Khan on Wikipedia and IMDB before sending:

"Well mate, you should consider it a complement you are being considered up against what would be the equivalent of Hugh Fucking Grant for me. Or maybe Geoffrey bloody Rush? Either way, I am now depressed."

_5.13pm_

Aasif checks the ultrabrown RSS feed to see whether they have linked to his bit from yesterday's show. They have, like they always do, and this time there is an approving one-liner which meant the desi jokes worked. He shoots off one final email before he goes to take a shower in preparation for his dinner with Mira Nair tonight.

"Don't be. You're part of the Best Fucking News Team on the planet, remember? For a couple of professional fake people, we are living the good life."


End file.
